


up in smoke

by armageddonkey



Category: Rock & Rule (1983)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Sad, old
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 01:47:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4503123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armageddonkey/pseuds/armageddonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>he’s got a big red brand new guitar and he doesn’t need old things anymore. he’s gonna be a rock star and rock stars don’t become rock stars by staying in ohmtown, usa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	up in smoke

**Author's Note:**

> a very old thing, never truly finished. i'll possibly rewrite and/or add on to it in the future. warnings for alcohol and parental abuse. enjoy.

there’s this house around the outskirts of ohmtown. it was probably white once, but now the walls are so worn and dusted with dirt it’s impossible to tell, and more than half the shingles are falling off the roof. the front porch resembles a pile of lumber someone shot with a nail gun a few dozen times, and the lock on the front door is broken, so anyone could just walk in but no one wants to. the whole house is crooked and bad and falling apart. just like the family who lives in it, some people say.

omar lives in that house. he’s 7 years old and too thin for his age, with scrappy black hair and band-aids on his knees and more teeth missing every day. three other people live in the house, too. there’s a ghost made of cigar smoke and smashed bottles that could never be called a father, and a monster with long red claws who shrieks so loud at night sometimes the blanket can’t block it out. and there’s omar’s big brother.

omar’s big brother sits on the back porch. he sits out there when the sun is setting in bloody reds and purples, with an electric guitar in his lap. his fingers are even more bandaged than omar’s knees, and they flick fast over frayed stringers. the notes are tinny and warbly. they can’t afford an amp, and he wouldn’t be allowed to have one in the house anyway. it doesn’t matter. when he plays, it’s like the crickets chirp to the tune, the summer breeze blows to the rhythm. and if anyone bothered to come out and tell him to quit that racket, his lips would curl into a hard line that could almost be a smile, and he’d just keep playing. for the sake of it. for the sake of rock and roll. cause he’s gonna be a big star someday.

omar thinks that’s the coolest thing in the world.

he likes to sit on the back porch next to his big brother. and big bro doesn’t look up from the strings when he asks omar if he has friends to be with, or fireflies to catch, or something to do besides sitting here and rocking the porch and making it squeak. like the house needs to fall apart any more. omar doesn’t answer. he just asks his big bro to play van halen, or to measure how tall he is. “omar, you haven’t gotten any taller since yesterday,” big bro says, but he doesn’t sound annoyed enough for omar to stop begging.

so his brother sighs and sets the guitar aside, careful not to put it on a rusty nail. and he stands up, and he’s so tall, so tall omar can barely see his face, like it’s in shadow. omar wants to be that tall someday, and he tells his brother so, and his brother makes a sound from deep in his throat that could almost be a chuckle.

the floorboards creak under big bro’s combat boots and omar’s scuffed-up sneakers. they have to go down to the basement and mark omar’s height on the doorframe, on the inside. they used to do it on omar’s door, but one bad chewing out later and they had to scrub it off. omar lines up against the frame, dumb gap-toothed grin on full display, and big bro has to tell him once, twice, three times to stay still and keep his head straight. omar watches him bend down, a ruler in one hand, a pencil in the other. his eyes nearly roll into the back of his hand trying to see the pencil make a mark on the doorframe, but of course he can’t see. he can’t see his brother make a mark slightly above the last one, even though it’s true, he hasn’t gotten any taller since yesterday.

omar’s eyes light up when he sees it, like it’s the best thing in the world, being a bit taller than 4 feet. that dumb gap-toothed grin gets even wider, and his brother shakes his head but in a big brother way. “you’re comin’ along, big o,” he says, running a rough hand over omar’s head, messing up his hair even more. “and that means you’re gonna leave me alone for now, huh?” omar nods but follows his brother back to the porch, like a puppy, and big bro doesn’t actually mind. he sits out there when the sun is long gone and the power plant stands a stark silhouette against the night sky. he plays van halen and omar tries not to rock the porch when he sways to the tune. after a while, he stops swaying, and his brother sets the guitar aside again to pick him up and carry him to his room.

omar has dreams sometimes. his big brother kneels by his dirty unmade bed and says goodnight, and says i love you, and promises that one day when he’s a big star he’ll take him away from this good for nothing house and this good for nothing town. sometimes he feels like his brother is just a dream, just a tall guitar-playing shade who almost smiles and almost laughs but not quite. all glinting chipped teeth and calloused fingertips and dark bold lines of his face, that don’t seem real until omar wakes up and stumbles into the living room and sees him there, asleep on the holey couch with the guitar still in his lap.

he hopes that it will always be this way. that he’ll always wake up and see his big bro asleep on the couch, and they’ll always sit out on the back porch when the sun starts to set and his brother will play that guitar. and he’ll give omar great white and screeching weasel and def leppard cds and band t-shirts too big for him and a cigarette or beer to try, and a drink of water when he still hates it as much as he did last time.

omar has nightmares sometimes. his big brother kneels by his dirty unmade bed and says nothing, and then he stands up and walks away and the door slams. it makes the entire house collapse, raining drywall and shingles and nails.

\---

when most kids turn ten, they’re pretty excited. double digits and all. the thing is, ten years old can be a weird age. when people are asked what age they began having concrete memories, a majority say ten years old. that’s because when you hit the double digits, things start to change. you start realizing things aren’t forever. you lose things. and you can’t forget.

if you’ve got a car, nuke york is 3 days away. if you’ve got your own two feet and a shiny new guitar and a dream, who knows how long it can take. it doesn’t really matter. nothing matters to twenty-somethings who’ve been itching to get out of this shitty little town their whole lives. nothing can stop them. omar learned that when he hit the double digits.

omar sits on the back porch. he sits out there as the sun sets in bloody reds and purples. his big brother is standing, though. his big brother looks bigger and taller than ever, and omar can barely see his face. the tears don’t help. they don’t help him see and they don’t help convince him and they don’t help anything and he knows that. in his hands he clutches a guitar. it feels too heavy. it’s always felt too heavy every time his brother let him hold it, but today it feels like he’s being crushed under its weight.

omar remembers midnights under flickering lightbulbs. he remembers sabbath playing too soft from the walkman as he flipped through tattered falling apart notebooks, eyes scanning lyrics and chords scrawled messily in black pen. he remembers telling his brother he’ll be just like bowie and alice cooper and joe strummer, that he’ll blow up nuke york all over again, and it’ll be the coolest thing ever. he never really thought of what else it could be.

big bro refuses to call it that, but what he's doing is leaving. leaving home like in those old cartoons omar used to watch, except he doesn’t have a stick and handkerchief over his shoulder, just a big red guitar that shines in the sunset. he’s got a big red brand new guitar and he doesn’t need old things anymore. he’s gonna be a rock star and rock stars don’t become rock stars by staying in ohmtown, usa.

omar sobs “goodbye” and his voice holds no acceptance. big bro says “keep dreaming, kid” and his voice holds no hesitance.

omars’s big brother starts walking away and omar waits for the credits to roll. he wants it to fade to black, wants to kick the popcorn box under the seat and head home. but he has to watch his brother’s broad-shouldered silhouette get smaller and smaller. the thing is he doesn’t look back. and omar tries to understand, tries to understand when he knows that if he ever left his brother he would be looking back every five steps, trying to see him till he can’t anymore. and he can’t anymore. and then it fades to black.

omar doesn’t wake up in his bed. and he can’t forget.


End file.
